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OUTDATED SKILLSETS HAVE NO PLACE IN TODAY’S AFTERMARKET

No matter how talented your team, there’s always room for improvement.

By Zara Wishloff

Everything has a best-before date.

We don’t often associate our set of work skills with an expiration date, but in a fast-paced society, that’s exactly what happens. Although it’s difficult to not rest on our laurels, in order to succeed, embracing change and learning how to adapt is essential to success.

Some of the standout moments in my career seem almost laughable to retell.

When working for a large corporation, I created a policy manual that contained Clipart. With the evolution of graphics and technology, using such a basic tool to fuel a corporate document is funny to think about, but back in the day, incorporating those simple graphics helped capture the attention of those in charge of giving me a promotion.

Whether it was substituting unique fonts into an otherwise boring document, or adding pops of colour to text documents, these innovations helped me stand out in the marketplace for much of my career, but they were short-lived.

Unfortunately, I witnessed what happened to those who became too comfortable in their newly learned skillset.

Make way for the digital revolution

When fax machines hit the scene, it was a futuristic concept. In the pre-internet days, it was remarkable that you could send your documents over phone lines. I remember getting a fax read on Much-Music. Now, we could send our thoughts across the country and have them documented and broadcast in a matter of minutes. It’s a concept that seems basic, and almost primitive by today’s standards.

But clever marketers could blitz companies directly with targeted sales messaging. Rural clients could get the same up-to-date specials and sell-sheets as the big cities. It was a great tool, until something better came along. When that happened, some professionals got stuck, unable to comprehend that the business landscape around them was rapidly changing with new technologies. What once set them apart as innovative, market leaders had reached its expiry, and they were unable to realize it.

Faxes weren’t the only thing that reached the end of their shelf life. There were manufacturer reps who brilliantly adapted to working with spreadsheets, producing popularity lists and processing data with a flair nobody had seen before. WD’s would lean on these heroes to work with their data for a competitive advantage.

But, just like the technology that came before, eventually, those considered ahead of the times got left behind as smarter technology took over. The inability to adapt took their most relevant asset and turned it into a liability. They were still churning documents, when there were better, more efficient, and user-friendly methods to process the data. The greater majority opted for understanding the products that these software companies were churning out at a rapid rate. While these examples from the past might seem dated, I urge the younger generation of workers to exercise caution. While being the only one in the office with a particular skillset may make you feel untouchable, you should always work with the mindset that the workplace can change in a split second. Always reinvent your skillset and be on the lookout for ways that you can improve what you’re already good at.

The world is changing quickly, make sure you are changing with it, and always remember to keep an eye on your skillset expiry date!

Zara Wishloff

Vice president of sales and marketing for Automotive Parts Distributors (APD) with four warehouses in Alberta and Saskatchewan. You can reach him at zwishloff@apdparts.ca.